


Bench Warmer (A Naruto SI)

by Blackmarch



Category: Naruto
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Basically married, Best Friends, Bestest Friends, F/F, F/M, Fingering, Gals being pals, Lesbians, Nihilism, Nihilism Can Be Cool, Oral Sex, Other, Sakura deserves better, Self Insert, Superpowered Perversion Potential, They all deserve better, Useless Lesbians, Vaginal Sex, the best of friends really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:01:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29834316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackmarch/pseuds/Blackmarch
Summary: Haruno Sakura. Her. A paranoid, pessimistic, 'I don't wanna die' oriented young woman that knows exactly where she stands in a world where Naruto and Sasuke exist. Not at the top.This is our hero, people. She's the token teammate. And, you know what? That's fine. They don't get put into the bingo books. They get to go home to their families at the end of the day. This is fine.No matter how hard her hot, blonde friend tries to convince her otherwise.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Yamanaka Ino
Comments: 21
Kudos: 106





	1. Chapter 1

It was hard to explain what it meant to be intelligent.

There was the obvious. You grasped ideas quicker when presented to you. New ideas came to you without prompting easier. Some people were just smarter than others in a noticeable and quantifiable manner. But it was hard to explain what that really, really meant when it came from someone that could think a little faster on average.

I’d always thought as I had. I’d always been quick on the uptake. Did people often compare how they breathed? How efficient they were with blinking? The idea of intelligence was an abstract one and I wasn’t all that special. Not compared to everyone else.

I lived in a world of ninja. AKA, punch wizards. That explained everything. In this world the intelligent were… At the risk of tarring myself with the same brush, what other ninja called prodigies were, as a whole, insane. Utterly batshit. Bugfuck nuts.

They were all a bunch of fruit loops and had zero common sense. You know. Like your average wizard. No sense of right and wrong… Right. Where was I going with this? Right. Back to that cyclical and cynical process where I doubted my own label of ‘prodigy’ of course. At least what the locals considered a prodigy.

I was sane.

I wasn’t crazy. Not even close. That disqualified me from that title by default. That I had the possibly entirely fabricated memories of a thirty-year-old man in my head and knowledge of a future that I couldn’t prove was real was just me being eccentric… I had a very good imagination. Because I was intelligent. But not _intelligent_. That was my story and I was sticking to it.

I just had a minor anxiety disorder. That was my only real problem. It was a problem I had because of course I did. It was a very normal problem and not at all a sign of mental instability. Because, you see, I wasn’t a prodigy. I was no one important. I wasn’t talented. I was just very motivated when it came to not dying.

That was another story I was sticking to if anyone asked. Because it was true. And sensible. It made sense.

My career involved dodging extremely sharp gardening tools and not getting gravity smashed by some dickhead with a god complex in a few years’ time. Possibly. People I hadn’t even met yet honestly wanted to kill me because I was a genin with a leaf mark on my forehead. Definitely. Why wouldn’t I have anxiety?

Exactly.

God, help me.

“Breathe, forehead girl.”

A hard finger flick to the forehead protector shocked me back to reality. It wasn’t even enough to rock my head back but it did have me putting my hands up to my head in a pavlovian response. Years upon years of this happening to me had left its mark.

There was only one person that could have done it and I didn’t even need to consciously see them first to let out a protest.

“Damn it, Ino! Quit it!”

Pavlov was a bitch… Or maybe it would be called a Yamanaka reaction? Ino response?

Psychiatry didn’t even exist yet outside of torture and interrogation. I had to get names for these things from somewhere.

“I really don’t get you, Sakura. I’ve known you since I was six and I swear you haven’t changed at all.” Ino shook her head at me with a smirk on her face. That, and with a clear lack of a promise to stop flicking me; I hadn’t gotten one out of her in ten years but I kept trying anyway. “You’re the kunoichi of the year. You’re on the fast track to becoming one of the best combat medics Konoha has ever seen. What do you have to worry about?”

If only she knew.

“Everything,” I grumbled while adjusting my protector. It still felt like it didn’t sit right. Maybe Ino had the right idea, making it into a belt? “And you act like being the best straight out of the academy means anything.”

It really didn’t. It just meant you were good at basic, safe tests where you didn’t have to worry too much (we were still ninja after all) about getting something pointy somewhere sensitive... And having people roll their eyes at me whenever I brought up reality was getting old.

“What a killjoy. That’s just like you. What did I expect?” She bumped a slender shoulder against mine, those arm warmers of hers making it a lot softer than it should have been while she slid a menu in front of me with the expected roll of her eyes. I thought I might have felt a senbon. “Now stop being lame and order something. We’re celebrating and we don’t go to Yakiniku Q every day.”

That’s true. We didn’t. Or, at least, I didn’t. Ino was a Yamanaka. This store was run by the Akimichi. She got an Akimichi vassal’s discount. I most certainly did not.

I looked around, the hair on the back of my neck standing up as I saw people. Men. Women. Children. Milling around. Talking. Moving. Carrying pointy objects in clumsy fingers.

If this had been another time, as my mom would say, ‘we have barbecue at home’. We never did, but it was the thought that counted. The thought being I wasn’t made of money. Or steel. At another time. Not today though.

“Yeah, yeah. I guess we don’t become genin every day. This is a special occasion. I know.” I grudgingly gave into my best friend’s badgering to look through the menu and cry about the future state of my wallet: sort of full but not really. “I’m guessing I’ll be the only one eating this time around?”

Ino had responsibilities that I didn’t. I wasn’t sure if this was one of those times, but nothing wrong with an assumption.

“Ehhh. I’ll be getting a salad. A small one. But yeah. My dad is setting up a big dinner with Choji’s and Shika’s and I can’t skip out. Choji might get mad if I don’t try and eat a little piece of everything.” Ino put her chin on the back of her hand and blew a few strands of platinum-blonde hair out of her face, an expression of affected boredom plastered on. “Sorry I can’t take you along but, you know.”

I was right then.

“Clan things. Thought so.” I flagged a waitress down, the poor girl clearly being run ragged by the influx of customers that had thought the same thing Ino and I had when it came to celebrating this year’s graduation. “Can I get the prime kalbi? Salted? Two servings? And water? That’s it.”

The waitress seemed relieved by how quick I’d been. “Of course.”

“A salad and a water. That’s it for me. Also, two servings?” Ino rose a brow at me as the waitress left. “Are you _trying_ to get fat?”

“I’m trying to fill the empty hole in my heart where you were, preemptively,” was my dry reply. “And if it wasn’t for the prices I’d have gotten three.”

What? It was good food.

Her nose wrinkled. Pupil-less bluish-green eyes narrowed in faux-disgust. “Ugh. Where is your womanly pride, Sakura?”

“I’m not sure. Right here, I think.” I waggled my braid at her, the loops of the bright red ribbon around thick pink hair at the end tickling her nose. She only barely avoided sneezing. I only barely avoided having it end up between her teeth. “Eat well. Live long. This is why I’m the kunoichi of the year and you aren’t.”

Ino exhaled quickly through her nose, a glint in her eye. Her loose purple top seemed to inflate through pure emotion. That and an offended inhalation. “So _now_ it matters.”

“Uh-huh.” I had a smirk of my own this time around. There were a lot of things you could say about Ino, but she really knew how to get me out of a funk. “Only because it matters to you.”

“How dare you.” Ino gasped, her voice now a whisper from behind her hand. “You are an evil, bitter, spiteful hag of a woman.”

“Don’t act like you’re surprised,” I drawled, fingers tapping on the menu in front of me as the minutes dragged on. “You knew what I was when you took me into your home.”

“Damn. You got me. It’s true. I knew what you were as soon as I saw you.” Ino playfully grimaced. “And I thought I could change you.”

“More fool you.” I couldn’t help the laugh I let out. That and what I said next. “I’m going to miss this.”

“Hmm, yeah. Me too. We’re going to be busy from now on, huh? Not like we’re going to be strangers, but...” Ino sighed, her hands now laying one on top of the other on the table. “We’re going to get put into teams. We’re going to be doing missions.”

“Training.”

“All you ever do is train.”

“And I’m going to do more of that. Just hours on hours of me getting sweaty and smelly and sore.” I nodded wistfully. Ino’s grimace became more real as I spoke. “I’ll be on the edge of chakra exhaustion all day, every day or bust. It’ll be great.”

Bleed a little now. Sweat a lot later. Don’t die like some fresh ANBU chunin that had just stepped into something way over their pay grade. What wasn’t to love about it?

“That’s gross. Just gross. I had to be twice as ladylike to fill the void _you_ left behind, I swear.” Ino shuddered. Then the plates holding our food slid into their places, the waitress giving us a quick bow before vanishing once more. That had taken a while. “Ooh, yum.”

“Ooh, shiny.”

With a quick series of hand signs from under the table, I was sure it was all safe to eat. Safeish. You could never really tell. New poisons were made all the time.

But at least no one was offended.

Ino stuck her tongue out at me before digging into her meal. Lettuce. Tomato. A radish bit here and there. Rabbit food; I didn’t envy her at all. How could I, when I had some of the best prime rib in the land of fire cooking on the grill between me and Ino? And rice. Some of the best dipping sauce too.

The Akimichi didn’t run like eighty percent of the local food shops for no reason… I’d trade magical eyes for limitless amounts of good food any day.

Except not really. I was just saying that. Magical eyes were bullshit and I wanted a pair.

Just not in an Orochimaru sort of way… Did Danzo _really_ need all those eyes in his arm? He could share, couldn’t he? A redistribution of resources might be needed… Or not at all. If there was a time I was ever confident enough to try and mug Danzo for his arm I probably didn’t need the eyes on it anyway.

Didn’t need to make more enemies than I already had. Not now.

I shook my head and focused on the food. Nice and juicy and that deep brown that had gotten me disapproving looks from my fellow meat-eaters more than once. A nice touch of crunchy char around the edges was what made it for me, the moist center just moist enough for the rice to stick to and the sauce to complement.

We didn’t come here every day. But I sure wish I did… Ino might have had a point. I could get fat eating like this. It would be easy.

That I had to cook it myself appealed to me on a visceral level. That meant that I’d cut out a step that could be used to get to me. I’d already made sure the grill in our table was clear a while ago as well so all the better.

The food on my end was gone soon after. From grill to mouth, it vanished; my wallet couldn’t take another round and the world was a less colorful place for it. “It’s unfair how good this is.”

And a possible habit. Fixed schedules were the enemy and something to avoid.

Ino looked up at me from the salad she’d been picking at. “Have you ever heard of enjoying your food, Sakura?”

“Do you think I’d have eaten it this fast if I didn’t enjoy it?”

“That sounds like something Choji would say, even if you are a lot prettier than that fatty. You two are something else.” She took one last bite of leaf and dropped her fork while her other hand pawed for a napkin. Her food wasn’t even halfway done and she’d thrown in the towel. Proof in action. “I’ll put this on my tab. Don’t worry about it.”

Right. Don’t worry about it, huh? Ino may have been my best friend but she wasn’t above applying a little leverage when she was going for an angle.

It was never anything big but, sometimes, I wish she would just say what she wanted instead of tiptoeing around the issue.

Also, if she was trying to entice me by pushing her chest out, she needed to wear tighter clothing. What she had on was pretty much a shapeless lavender bag that I’m pretty sure her dad had put over her head before pushing her out the door; At sixteen, my friend was what you could only call a ‘late bloomer’.

You could call me that too but I didn’t care much. Jogging without a bra hurt more than enough as it was.

“You’re all heart, Yamanaka.” I wiped my own mouth clear while, with just a few words between her and the cashier, our bill was settled. “What do you want?”

"Can't a friend help another friend out of a tight spot? You could really hurt my feelings by acting all suspicious like that, you know?" Ino asked as she spread her hands out in front of her. "But if you want to find something to help me with, I do have something in my room that needs moving around nine."

"Moving." It was my turn to raise a brow. She did so back, looking coy. Cute. "Around nine."

As I'd thought.

"Like you said. We don't know when we're going to be able to spend time together again. We're both going to be busy." She put her hand on mine, purple nails laying themselves next to pink… They were cold, as always. Refreshingly cold. "I just want to hang out while we still have the time."

"Tempting." That wasn't a lie, per se. We both knew what this was. It wasn't as if this was new. It was just that Ino had a libido that never seemed to quit. I appreciated being her first choice but it really cut into my time. "But what about Sasuke?"

"That is that and this is this. I haven't even caught him yet. They aren't the same thing at all." Ino laughed that question off and pat my hand like I hadn't asked it before. I had. It never seemed to stop her. "Stop being such a worrywart, forehead girl. Try and live a little."

"I'd prefer a lot, actually."

Ino leered at me, her shoulder bouncing off of mine one last time before she slid out of our booth. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Sakura."

I didn't bother to answer. That wasn't a promise. That was a statement I should have kept to myself.

If it had been though… I never made ones I didn't keep… Hmm. I guess...

I watched Ino leave, her hips rocking from side-to-side without a care in the world as she skipped through the door; the bandages around her waist and thighs were an odd look, but not a bad one. Not for me.

It mostly made me want to see what was underneath...and that was how I knew that Ino had won our little argument.

I'd been holding something back for a while. For tactical reasons. Also, so that people wouldn’t make fun of me. This new jutsu wasn’t exactly explosive… It might have had a use after all though.

This would get my mind off of Naruto for sure. Him, and his excruciating failure when it came to passing earlier today. There was that. That had been pretty sad.

He’d be fine.

Me? We’d see.

==========

Graduation had been at noon. Ino and I had gone to Yakiniku Q right out of it and had stayed there for nearly two hours. After that, I’d had a lot of free time to do what I always did. I trained. For hours. Sort of. I mostly just practiced certain sorts of jutsu, making sure I could pull it off without a single mistake. For reasons. Reproductive reasons.

In both meanings of the term. Working towards multiple ends was a mark of efficiency and I was that if I was anything. My progress when it came to the understanding of nerve endings and physical perception had… This wasn’t the right time for that.

Much as I’d have liked to have made my life a cycle of self-improvement and rest, I needed entertainment and social engagement to be a stable human being… Whatever that meant. So I’d spent several hours on that and made my way towards my appointment with Ino, somewhat glad that my parents were out of Konoha on ninja business.

I loved my mom but she could get really nosy about what I did when I went out the window at night.

‘Seeing Ino’ had not impressed her.

“You’ve gotten - pretty good at this, forehead girl.” The tip of Ino’s tongue poked out to wet her puffy, bruised lips. The tip of mine met hers halfway and she giggled. Swayed on the tips of her toes as she leaned in to give me a peck, her arms around my neck. “Have you been - practicing?”

“Have I?” I sighed and rocked her as she buried her head in my neck. My hands roamed over her body, tight as piano wire beneath my fingers, bandages piled neatly on the floor and the skin of her waist as smooth as silk under my palms. “Isn’t that what we’re doing right now? Practicing, Ino-pig?”

“Smartass,” was Ino’s murmured reply as my fingertips, glowing blue, ghosted along her ribs just under her bra; her hair stood up instantly, a shiver going down from her head to her toes as the trail I left behind lit up. “O-oh. Oh, wow.”

“I thought you’d like that.” I traced out a cross on her side, taking my time as her eyes grew misty and she let out a soft, moaning coo. “Do you want to know what I’m doing to you? How it works?”

“Y-yeah. That would be - guh… Uh… What-” Ino bit her lip, her thighs rubbing up against mine when my finger ran between her shoulder blades. “No _fair._ ”

“It’s not meant to be, Ino-pig.” A circle with my thumb made her whimper, her mouth opening slightly for a kiss. A short one, but passionate. One that had our tongues rolling happily against each other until the air ran out. “You were always really ticklish, weren’t you?” I poked a spot just under her right breast and she moaned, her eyes going wide. “Here?”

Right there.

“I’m s-supposed to be practicing on you! Not you on me!” Ino squeaked aggressively. Her holding herself tighter against my body when I sparked that nerve once more didn’t impress. “I’m going to have to throw these panties away, dumbass!”

She wasn’t the only one...these spats were practically see-through. And we’d never agreed to that. Practice went both ways. That was how it had always been.

“Oh? I’m sorry.” I called upon some more of my chakra. Just a smidge more, held as a steady flow in my thumb, hovering over the same spot as before. “Since you’re going to get rid of them anyway though…”

My thumb came down and wiggled. Ino locked up. The pregnant pause as her face went slack and her eyes stopped tracking was a long one. Twenty seconds or so of her legs trembling and her nails scratching softly at my neck. Her feet thumping flat onto the floor as toes curled and she lost her balance and put all her weight into me, her rock as her brain dribbled down her thighs.

“That works then. That works very well.” I hummed and went back to rocking my friend while the aftershocks passed through her. The drool would wash out. “I probably should have led up to that more though.”

We’d kind of ended things early today… But I’d never seen Ino cum like that so it evened out, I suppose.

I’d work myself out if I had to.

“No siit.” Ino slurred, hands falling limply from around my shoulders. She was doing well. “I cat foil ma fas.”

“Was it good though?”

Ino’s head, buried between what could kindly be called my bosom, nodded slowly. She rose a thumb up as well for emphasis. “Birdah gif. Nex.”

“Your birthday?” I guessed. Ino nodded and I put that on my mental calendar. “Alright. As many as you want. After we sit you down. And get you some water.” My toes flexed in the puddle Ino had made that was creeping along the floorboards. “You sort of lost half of yours.”

Ino sighed dreamily. “Sho gud.”

==========

Five minutes, five glasses of water, and three aggressively purple towels later we were laying back in Ino’s bed. With the window open wide. Cuddling as we did after a good ‘practice’ session for when Ino got a boyfriend. Whenever that was.

I didn’t pretend to understand her thinking. It might have been a Yamanaka compartmentalization thing for all I knew. I just went along with everything because it was easy. And it was always a fun way to while away the time. And a real learning experience.

The Sasuke thing wore on me though. She could do better. A lot better.

“I had to use a family technique to pull my mindscape back together.” She croaked. “That could really hurt someone.” Ino stretched, her back arching until I heard a crack and she bounced off the bed at my side. The lotus flower blanket under her continued to scrunch. “Don’t do that to anyone you like except if it’s me. You monster.”

So use it on people I didn’t like and people who could handle it. Got it.

“So selfish,” I teased as I rolled onto my side, an entirely normal finger digging into her side making her flinch and giggle all at once. “You’re just taking advantage of me.”

“What I could be taking advantage of right now is a dildo.” She groaned, her forearm going over her eyes. “I’m still clenching here and it _sucks_.”

… This was as good a time as any to tell her about what else I’d put together, I guess. Also, I really had something here with that nerve-stim jutsu.

“Well, I don’t have a dildo,” I started somewhat hesitantly. I didn’t think that Ino would freak out or anything, but the subject I was about to broach was a little different from normal. “But I can grow a dick.”

Another pregnant pause happened.

Ino moved her arm to stare at me with a single eye. That eye was filled with disbelief. “You can grow what to who?”

That was the response I had expected.

I shrugged. “I can grow a dick.”

She blinked at me. “Why?”

Well. Here I went. “Don’t laugh.”

“Why would I laugh about you being able to grow a dick?” Ino asked.

“Don’t laugh.”

“Okay, okay. I won’t laugh.” She zipped her lips. “Tell me.”

“Okay.” I flopped back onto my back to stare at the ceiling. “I wanted to be able to pee while standing up.”

The quiet didn’t last long. At all. Maybe as long as me taking a breath. A breath like Ino was now unable to take as she instantly wheezed her way into unceasing, mocking laughter.

“You suck, Ino.”

She made a loud whistling noise instead of anything intelligible.

I continued to stare at the ceiling, unsurprised by this. Another five or so minutes passed while Ino struggled to survive her own giggles and I regretted opening myself up for pain. It was around there that Ino finally stopped sobbing into her pillow and kicking her legs and she had to calm down.

“You done?”

“Y-yeah.” She snorted. “Give me a second.”

I sighed and crossed my hands over my belly. “No, you aren’t.”

“... Yeah.” The cackling continued.

It only lasted three minutes longer. That and me threatening to stop ‘practicing’ with her. But we were finally able to talk. Like _adults._

“I made it for tactical reasons,” I groused and ignored Ino’s much shorter giggling. “Have you ever tried squatting behind a bush? Underwear around your knees? Completely vulnerable?”

“Oh, yeah.” She shuddered in disgust. “That’s just the worst.”

“Imagine _not_ having to do that.”

Ino thought about that for a while. “I see where you’re coming from now.”

“I brought it up because of the dildo comment.”

“Uh-huh.” Ino nodded at the edge of my vision. “Right. That tracks.”

I flipped through the hand signs real quick, then put my hands back on my stomach as my spats suddenly became a lot less roomy.

Just best to get it over with.

“Whoa. I didn’t think you were lying, but...” Ino pushed herself up on her elbow from the bed, barely blinking as she examined my crotch. “That’s an actual penis.”

Stating the obvious. What was the bulge pushing out my shorts supposed to be if not that? A rolled up sock?

“I’ve got a pair of balls too now. They kind of had to come with to make it all work.” Balls that were feeling kind of cramped at the moment. “But it is.”

“This is the closest I’ve ever been to seeing one for real.” Ino, with zero shame, gave me a pat. A cup. A fondle, her thumb playing in little circles over the head. “Wow. It even _feels_ real.”

With a flat look, I gave her crotch a pat in return. A cup. A fondle, my middle finger sinking between her plush lips; It was like I’d just dipped my hand in a sink. A still pulsing, twitching sink… Still? “Wow. This is also real. Surprise.”

Turnaround was fair play. Ino seemed to just realize what she was doing as a sheepish expression crossed her face. A glow returned to my hand and, with a squeeze of her lower lips, the blonde made a sigh of relief.

“That’s fair. And _finally._ That was starting to hurt a little.” Ino cleared her throat. “And did you know you’re really warm? Like really, really warm? More than normal? Because you are. Your new package, I mean.” Ino let me go and I returned the favor to clean my hand off on her sheets. “And I appreciate the offer of being my personal dildo-”

“That isn’t what I said.”

“-But we have to meet our new teams tomorrow. And our new sensei.” Ino ignored me to remind me of a real problem. “We should sleep.”

I winced as my half-erection went soft in seconds, my interest in sex doused by reality. “Right. We have to do that.”

Near perfect muscular control was not a small thing.

The both of us shucked all our clothing in seconds. A small water jutsu made sure that we wouldn’t wake up sticky in the morning and then we were under the covers. Lights out. Moon looking down on us. The both of us shared a pillow, like we had a hundred times before.

Just normal things as long as you ignored what we’d just been up to.

“You’re poking my leg,” Ino whispered.

“Welcome to the boyfriend experience.” I whispered back. “No refunds.”

I was feeling vindictive at the moment.

"Is this because I called you my personal dildo?"

“Yes.”

Sleep was going to take a while, I think.


	2. Chapter 2

Waking up in the morning with Ino went much the same as it always did. With her breathing softly into my ear as she untangled herself from me, her favorite teddy bear. Tired groans. Me giving her a pinch to hurry her up when it came to letting me go so that we could get on with our day.  
  
Neither of us were morning people. I understood how she felt. If it were up to me, I’d have stayed in bed until the afternoon. But it wasn’t up to me. It was up to our command structure now. We were soldiers. Calling in sick wouldn’t work as it had used to. Not that I’d ever done that, of course.  
  
Really. I was serious. Of course, I’ve never done that. What kind of fool skipped class in a school that was meant to teach you to stay alive in a hostile world?  
  
That was an easy answer to give. But Naruto didn’t count. He never counted. He could walk out of the academy right this instant and save a nation from certain doom. That was just Naruto. And Sasuke, I suppose. Except he’d probably blow it up instead.  
  
Second verse, same as the first.  
  
The rest of us weren’t as lucky as they were. Destiny didn’t bend over backward to shine the spotlight on the mortals. The characters were cast. The script, set. We were in the background and I was a tree in Idaho.  
  
It could make one weep.  
  
“Hey,” Ino said, pinching me right back. Right on the left cheek of my butt. “It’s too early.” Her eyes were bleary, her hair a mess. “Quit it. Stop brooding. Wipe yourself down. Get dressed. We don’t want to be late.”  
  
How dare she turn this around on me.  
  
… Five more minutes.  
  
I grunted and swung my legs out over the edge. Took a moment to hang my head, a water bubble from a nearby glass of water that I’d just upended over myself soon sliding over and around my body while Ino took her own advice, grabbing a towel and vanishing into the hallway.  
  
I’d have preferred to go with her but, well…her father was home. Neither of us was so arrogant as to think that he didn’t know about us, but we preferred not to rub it in his face. Inoichi had _opinions_ about his little girl. Mostly that she was a little girl. One that he only held back on because _I_ was a girl and he didn’t have to see it.  
  
If he ever learned about the jutsu I’d shown Ino last night, I had little doubt I’d wake up to see Ibiki’s face hovering over mine in due time. I doubted they’d actually hurt me. Ino wouldn’t be happy about it and I was a loyal ninja of Konoha, but it would be very inconvenient. I preferred it when life was the opposite of that.  
  
Like any normal person, I didn’t want any trouble if I could avoid it. It was only sensible.  
  
Like keeping a change of clothes in your friend’s house for any occasion. And vice versa.  
  
Soon, I was done with my shower. The water bubble went out the window and onto the streets; I was elbow deep in Ino’s closet in short order. Through the lavender everything. Through the piles of bandages and fishnets. To the second drawer at the back, second from the bottom. Socks, shorts, dresses. Bras, panties, makeup, and every other thing a young woman would ever need when in a bind, neatly folded and pressed. Just like always.  
  
“Rosewater.” I sniffed the qipao in the crook of my arm. “My favorite brand too. She remembered.”  
  
That was sweet of her, helping me start the day fresh. There was that.  
  
I had the idea I was going to run out of things to be happy about today.  
  
Just a hunch.  
  
==========  
  
I was right. Not that that was hard for me to be, right.  
  
Ino running off as soon as we entered the classroom to fawn over Sasuke after a nice, calm jog to school was just the start. The expected start. Honestly, I didn’t even mind that she was trying to get his attention. I wasn’t jealous. Why would I be? The boy wouldn’t even give her the time of day, let alone date her. And it wasn’t like I owned her.  
  
“Sasuke-kuuuuun~!” Ino just about _squealed_ into Sasuke’s ear. The steeple he’d made of his fingers in front of his face couldn’t hide his cringe. “Do you want to go on a date later? I know a place we can go to~.”  
  
What got to me is that, when he was involved, her personal capacity for self-respect went down the drain. It was embarrassing. It was painful to look at. He was just not into her and he hadn’t been shy about telling her that she annoyed him.  
  
“Go away, Yamanaka. You’re annoying.”  
  
He told her that every day. Explicitly. And sometimes worse. He must have been in a good mood today.  
  
Anyway. Second-hand embarrassment was not something I enjoyed feeling...but she wouldn’t listen to me when I tried. Or to anyone else for that matter. So, whatever. She’d grow up. Or she wouldn’t. I’d be here when she came crawling back to the seat next to mine, depressed and with a gallon of ice cream in her future either way.  
  
That was just part of being Ino’s best friend. Ino’s best, very disappointed, friend.  
  
… Maybe I needed to try pushing her harder? What motivated her? Sunk cost fallacy? Some form of pathology? This was starting to get kind of sad to look at.  
  
“What does she even see in the bastard anyway?”  
  
Exactly, my other sort of friend. That was the question I asked myself every day. Exactly.  
  
“I don’t know, Naruto. You tell me.”  
  
I leaned back in my seat, braid coiling in my lap to see the only other blond I knew, his face wrinkled and lips curled in ugly disgust. That was a good face. “And congratulations on passing.”  
  
“O-oh?” He blinked, his face smoothing out in surprise; I guessed no one had told him that today. The wide smile he made, his deep blue eyes closing tight as he rubbed the back of his head with a flush to his cheeks said as much. “Ah, thanks, Sakura! Congratulations to you too! I mean - I’m not surprised you passed.” He fidgeted in his seat. “You’re the kunoichi of the year and that’s pretty awesome!”  
  
“Uh-huh. That I am.” My title, useless as it was, was a statement of fact. “And I guess it’s alright.” I gave him a nod. He fidgeted some more. We didn’t talk much and it showed. “We’re going to be on a team together.”  
  
“Eh? We are?”  
  
“You sound certain of that. Where did you get that information?” A very tired-looking Shikamaru rose off of his desk like the freshly risen dead, just behind a confused Naruto’s head. “And how did you get a headband, Naruto? We were all there yesterday and you didn’t have one then.”  
  
Choji, right beside him, ate a chip. Loudly. And then he chewed. Once.  
  
His curiosity was palpable. How he managed to make those two actions a demand for gossip, we may never know.  
  
“Ah…” Naruto chuckled nervously as he turned to look. “Well, you see, there was this secret exam.”  
  
“A secret exam?”  
  
“That I passed.” If Naruto hadn’t been sweating before, he sure was now. He couldn’t lie to save his life. “And that’s why I’m here.”  
  
He was blowing it. “Just say it’s classified, Naruto.”  
  
Shikamaru’s eyes flickered towards me at my words, sharp as obsidian. I nodded back at him and he relaxed. More. He relaxed more. “Alright.”  
  
Talks between sensible, intelligent people were wonderful things. A word here. A word there. A whole conversation, done in a few sentences. The world would have been a better place if everyone did this. But they didn’t. And that was why we were all here. In a ninja school. Learning how to kill people for a living.  
  
And working with otherwise intelligent people that thought that Shogi was a good game.  
  
He’d never forgiven me entirely for saying that.  
  
Facts.  
  
Naruto sagged in his seat in relief. “It’s classified.”  
  
“There we go. You should use the c-word more, Naruto. It’ll save you a lot of heartaches” I twirled a finger in the air. “And come on, Shikamaru. You know better. The teams were set from the start.”  
  
He shifted his head from one arm to the other, looking as if he was about to fall asleep again. “Are they?”  
  
“Ino-Shika-Cho.”  
  
Choji let out a bark of laughter and shoved a whole handful of chips into his mouth. “She’s got you there, Shika. Damn, that’s funny.”  
  
Their fathers’ had been the best capture and interrogation team Konoha had had in generations. They were damn near legends. Why mess with a good thing when you had it?  
  
I didn’t see why that was funny.  
  
“That was an easy answer.” Nara waved a hand. And he wasn’t wrong. “You, Naruto and Sasuke?”  
  
“Hinata, Shino and Kiba.”  
  
“Well, what about-”  
  
The door slammed open before we could get into talking about if I was going to be honest, the fresh new career genin pool. People like Ami and Tohru who didn’t have the ambition or talent or any combination of the above to go further. Not that there was anything wrong with that. My own mother was part of the AMF.  
  
The village needed skilled workers. Sometimes, the big names weren’t around and you had to deal with invasions. The Allied Mother’s Force (it was a terrible name but I didn’t pick it), was an example of the many groups that filled that role, giving work to people that didn’t want to do the paperwork for a living but wanted to be useful. Like a union, but not. Unofficially.  
  
Either way, we needed people like that because, well, where would we get teachers? Speaking of, Iruka-sensei was looking pretty decent. He didn’t _look_ like he’d gotten stabbed in the back. No bandages wrapped around him, no wincing when he moved. He was missing his headband though and that sort of filled in the picture for me. What there was of it.  
  
Mizuki had been ‘retired’. Great. Letting him continue existing around decent people had stuck in my craw. I gave Naruto a blind thumbs up and I could _feel_ him lock up.  
  
“Alright! Settle down, all of you!” Iruka called out. What little noise there had been shut off like someone had turned a valve. Everyone sat down behind their desks and opened their ears. “Your sensei is going to be here to pick you up and you need to make a good impression as a ninja!”  
  
He really did care. And it wasn’t long before Shikamaru’s and my guesses turned out to be the right ones as he called them out. Everything was as it was supposed to be. My beliefs that this had been rigged by man or fate were cemented.  
  
Ino cursed but thankfully didn’t cry when she found out that she wouldn’t be on a team with Sasuke. Just with the other two young men that she’d known all her life. So terrible. I was going to have to deal with the aftermath that was me being assigned to work with him instead though.  
  
She was going to want to know about how many breaths he took every minute, then go from there. I exaggerated, but not by much. Her fascination with the boy was just unhealthy. And, as the class started to empty out, leaving Naruto, Sasuke, and I alone, I settled in for the long haul.  
  
We’d gotten Kakashi. As expected. He was the only guy with the Sharingan in all of Konoha that could teach Sasuke how to use it when he got it. Naruto was his last connection to his teacher. It was just obvious.  
  
We were going to be here a while.  
  
“Your sensei should be here soon,” Iruka said as he stepped out from behind his podium. He didn’t sound like he believed it, personally, but that’s what he said. I didn’t believe it either. “Don’t leave until he shows up, alright?” He turned to Naruto with a bright smile and got one back in return. “Good luck, all of you.”  
  
“Thank you, sensei,” Sasuke and I said back with varying levels of enthusiasm as he made to leave.  
  
“Good luck, Iruka-sensei!” Naruto called back, his lack of social boundaries showing. Not that Iruka seemed to mind as he gave Naruto a fond nod. Then, he was gone. The door opened.   
  
The door closed.  
  
There was silence.  
  
The book in my pocket came out. Anatomy, again. This time, something on acupuncture and its effects on the human body, positive and otherwise.  
  
I was sure that Ino wouldn’t mind letting me try it out on her. She hadn’t hated that time I’d learned massage. And chiropractic methods. This was nearly the same.  
  
Sasuke’s eyes unfocused and he stared at the blackboard like it had the secrets to killing his brother on it.  
  
Within five minutes, Naruto was jittering so fast he was a blur and would have licked the room’s doorknob if it meant he wouldn’t be bored anymore.  
  
It didn’t though. It was one of those sliding doors. Also, I was just kidding. Naruto wasn’t that dumb. Naruto had a lot of growing up to do but he wasn’t a toddler.  
  
“I’m going to trap the door,” he informed the both of us confidently.  
  
And I might have been wrong in my assessment. Naruto wasn't going to stop. Once he got an idea in his head he wouldn't let it go till he saw it through.  
  
He needed observation. Guidance.  
  
"He's a jounin. And one of the best that Konoha has ever produced. An eraser on top of the door will only hit if he's humoring you." I pointed out as I stood up from my seat and walked towards the nearest wall. "Bring your A-game. Impress. Just don’t blow anything up."  
  
Considering who we were talking about? This was harmless. And another learning experience. Naruto's trap-making skills among his peers were unmatched.   
  
Curious is the trapmaker’s art - his efficacy often unwitnessed by his own eyes… Witnessing it with my own eyes might help. There were no real downsides. It was a win-win all around.  
  
“He is?” Naruto asked skeptically as I began climbing up the wall. Sasuke sat up in his seat, his eyes now following me. “He’s twenty minutes late!”  
  
“Being punctual doesn’t mean you aren’t a badass. We’re going to be here for at least another few hours.” Near the top of the wall, I stopped. Spun on my heels to stand sideways, yes, sideways, on the wall, book in hand. It was hell on my legs and stomach, thanks to gravity. Very distracting. But that was the point. “And it isn’t hard to find out who he is. Get a bingo book or something. You can pick one up at the library for ten ryo.”  
  
“Hours!?” Naruto gaped up at me.  
  
“That just means you have plenty of time to surprise him with, Naruto.”  
  
“... How are you doing that?” Sasuke spoke to me for the first time that month. Literally. His voice ground with disuse. “We were never taught how to do that.”  
  
“I know. And that’s a shame. It’s not like it’s a particularly dangerous skill to learn. Even a child can pick it up.” I turned a page in my book as he bristled. I hadn’t meant it as it had sounded, but I wouldn’t apologize. “I’d teach you but the learning process can be destructive.”  
  
He looked up at me for a long while. Grunted, scowled, but accepted what I’d said. I had a reputation, carefully crafted and cultivated over the years for blunt honesty. If I said something, I meant it. “How would I learn?”  
  
“We’d have to find a strong tree. One that no one would care about.” Another page flipped while Naruto tinkered with several disparate bits and pieces he’d pulled out of his pockets and the inside of his jacket. “I’ll explain then. And I’ll be bringing Naruto along.”  
  
Naruto jolted, fumbling a box of balloons and other random things. “Me?”  
  
“We’re on a team. I’m not going to let you fall behind.”  
  
Naruto clearly didn’t know what to say to that. Again, we didn’t talk much. This much support must have been overwhelming.  
  
He was going to have to get used to it. Having Ninja Jesus on my side during the end times was important.  
  
Sasuke grunted, clearly unhappy but didn’t fight me on that either. I had something he wanted and Naruto wasn’t enough to stop him from getting it, it seems.  
  
Interesting. That was something I was going to have to use.  
  
“That’s probably not going to happen today,” I informed them both. “An hour is me lowballing this. He could decide to show up just before the sun starts going down.”  
  
“You can’t be serious,” Sasuke said flatly.  
  
“You’ll learn,” was my dark reply as I continued to read. “You’ll learn.”  
  
Some things needed to be experienced to be believed; The next three hours were fraught with the dangers of boredom. Even I wasn’t above it. Important as learning was, learning about the art of acupuncture out of a book wasn’t a particularly engrossing subject. My attention had limits.  
  
Discussing the merits of a flash tag versus a sound tag in a prank was more interesting. And somewhat fascinating in its own way.   
  
If anyone ever asked, I’d tell them outright that I had no training in the use of seals. None. I could attach them to a kunai. Set them off from a distance away. That was about it but anyone could do that. Working with seals was dangerous and my policy when making them was ‘don’t fuck around, don’t find out’. Sensible.  
  
I might have been hard-working but, no matter how hard you worked, there were only so many minutes in a day… If we were talking about my deficiencies, genjutsu was something else that I’d neglected. All I knew were the basics once again. Even something as relatively simple as a Hell Viewing Technique was beyond me.  
  
I’d figure those out. Later.  
  
Either way, watching Naruto attach a paperclip, a tag, and a single, easily breakable thread to a goldbergian monstrosity was a great deal more interesting than most of the things I read these days. My thighs and core continued to burn while I held my ground on the wall and time flew on past. Even Sasuke eventually stopped brooding and joined the rest of us in hovering over the surreal madness that was...whatever Naruto was making.  
  
I didn’t know. It was beyond me. And I’m pretty sure Sasuke didn’t know either.  
  
“What is that supposed to do?” Sasuke pointed at a wad of plastic.  
  
He definitely didn’t know. I’d been worried I was the only one.  
  
That would have been embarrassing.  
  
“Trigger this when you trigger that.” Naruto pointed absentmindedly at an actual mousetrap and a kunai under tension by a clump of rubber bands. Tension that, if it were to suddenly break, would end up throwing it into the blond’s eye. Not that he seemed to care as he pounded a stake into a block of wood that made the kunai quiver and bounce. “It’ll set off the firecrackers.”  
  
Sasuke squatted down, brow furrowed. The mention of explosives had gotten his attention. I found that worked on everyone. “Why do you need firecrackers?”  
  
Naruto scoffed at the layman. “To set off the glue and feather balloons. That’s easy!”  
  
Easy, huh?  
  
I looked it over with a critical eye, moving to the ceiling to look from an entirely new direction even. It didn’t help. It actually looked more complicated than before. And where were the balloons? “Hm.”  
  
“Is that itching powder?”  
  
“Uh-huh. The good stuff. Washes off easy but lasts a while if you don’t get it off quick.”  
  
“I see, I see. Good job in getting decent materials; My first impression of you three is that you’re a bunch of delinquents.”  
  
I nearly fell off the ceiling from shock. Sasuke backflipped away from the man that had just appeared in our midst and Naruto let out a yell as he scooted away on his butt.  
  
The white-haired man that had just knocked a year off my life raised a hand in greeting. “Yo. I’m your new sensei.” He put that hand in his pocket and continued to stand where he was. “I was planning on taking you up to the roof for some fresh air, but I think we can introduce ourselves where we are.” His single, half-lidded eye slid over Naruto’s project. “Then we’ll have a refresher on trap disarmament.”  
  
So… This was Kakashi… I had to say that, if I didn’t know who he was, I wouldn’t have been impressed.  
  
The man looked like a slob. Had he never heard of a hairbrush?  
  
“You’re our new sensei?” Naruto jumped up onto his feet, finger extended to point at a very unimpressed jounin’s face. “You’re late!”  
  
How cliche.  
  
“I’m sorry. I got lost on the road of life. We all do that from time-to-time. Some of us more than others.” He shrugged, his only visible eye narrowed to emote a smile. “Just like some of us have to give our new teammates instructions on how to disarm a…” He peered closer. Hummed. “Actually, I’m not sure what this is. How exciting for you Sasuke, Sakura. We’re all going to learn something new today.”  
  
And this was how we met Hatake Kakashi, the Copycat nin.  
  
“And, Naruto, you’ll be giving them instructions. _Just_ instructions.” His eye narrowed even further as he patted the suddenly pale blond on the back. “Their lives, and this classroom’s beautiful paint job, are in your hands.”  
  
Sasuke glared.  
  
I sighed. At least there was one thing that was still the same.  
  
He was kind of an asshole.  
  
“And, for incentive, I’ve got these bells…”  
  
 _That motherfucker._


	3. Chapter 3

This surprising turn of events...did not spark joy.  
  
Now, normally, I was all for a change. For a difference, no matter how small and insignificant it might have been in the face of fate and prophecy. Small moments like those gave me life. They gave me the oddly euphoric feeling that I’d just spat in the eye of someone I disliked very much.  
  
I’d never done anything of the sort, of course, but that was how I imagined it would feel.  
  
Of course, when a change in the path led to a strong chance of personal harm and danger, I naturally-  
  
“Bells?” Naruto loudly interrupted my internal turmoil with an almost yell. Or, in other words, with his normal tone and volume. “What bells?”  
  
Damn it, Naruto, I’d been having a moment.  
  
“I’m glad you asked, Naruto. I’m glad you asked.” Kakashi, the corner of his single visible eye crinkling in an emoted smile that filled me with more than reasonable amounts of discomfort, gave the blond a pat on the shoulder. “And so is Yanyan-Kun.”  
  
How...sickeningly cutesy sounding. And worrying. As the unknown tended to be.  
  
I didn’t give him the satisfaction of audibly acknowledging what he’d just said. But it had affected me, even if slightly.  
  
He probably knew it too, the bastard.  
  
“Yanyan-Kun?” Sasuke did all of the acknowledging for me, clearly skeptical about what had just come out of his mouth. A good thing to be, I’d say.   
  
Better him than I.  
  
“Did none of you notice him? You were just looking at him a moment ago.” Kakashi blinked sleepily at us as we all turned back to Naruto’s trap, which we’d been ignoring for less than a minute in favor of...whatever this was turning out to be. “His day was already going terribly. Now you’ve just hurt his feelings.”  
  
We all finished turning...and we all took in the view. That view being a stuffed dog...an abnormally cute stuffed dog. Very high quality at a glance. Imported, maybe? One with soft, white fur and big, round eyes that just drew you in and...focus. Not the time for that.  
  
Later.  
  
A short look gave me what I was looking for. The bells were around its neck, swaying, and ringing lightly in an unseen breeze. The entire animal was wrapped up in strategically placed ninja wire, the anchor points disappearing into the unreadable labyrinth that Naruto had created from baling wire (Yes, baling wire, which was different from the ninja variety) and office supplies.  
  
“He wasn’t there before,” I pointed out.  
  
And I didn’t squeak while doing it. Or squeal. Or any variation of either of those things. I was far too dignified for that. Really.  
  
Not a peep.  
  
Ino would think it was cute though. And she’d do all of that.  
  
And not me.  
  
It was a very nice toy and I wasn’t made of stone.  
  
“Nonsense. He’s been there this whole time, Sakura-chan. It isn’t his fault you didn’t notice him.”  
  
“What?” Naruto actually yelled, outraged in that way only Naruto could be. “No, he wasn’t! Where the hell did-”  
  
“And now you’re victim-blaming delinquents. I worry for Konoha’s future. But, maybe, you will all turn it around. Maybe you aren’t hopeless after all?” Kakashi hummed. “Can you three get Yanyan-Kun free of the trap you created?” He paused for a long while. “Can you keep yourselves from being sent to the academy for another year?”  
  
“What do you mean, go back to the academy?” Naruto continued to yell. “We already passed!”  
  
“Sure you did.” Kakashi chuckled. “Sure you did.”  
  
“We don’t pass till he says we pass.” I clarified before this could drag on any longer, an eye on the trap once more to try and find some semblance of reason and sense. It having been made by Naruto though, that was a hard thing to ask for. “That’s what he means.”  
  
“Has anyone told you that you’re a killjoy, Sakura?”  
  
I shrugged.  
  
All the time. But he probably knew that already too.  
  
Sasuke’s fists clenched. His brow furrowed. The promise of Uchiha violence, which was a special kind of violence, was made imminent, carved out of the lines of his body. “What does any of that have to do with the bells?”  
  
“You have a hostage in front of you and you’re worried about bells. There is no bottom with you. But, fine. I’ll humor you.” He sighed. “Save the dog. Save your careers. Is that clear enough for you?”  
  
And here it was. Solid ground. Something I knew how to work with. Work together. Get through together.  
  
“But-” Naruto started loudly.  
  
“Naruto,” I ended flatly. “We can stand here and yell at our new sensei all day or we can get this over with. I’m hungry.”  
  
We’d passed lunch hours ago and I was starting to get irritable.  
  
“Ah, damn it. Now you got me thinking about ramen. Okay. Guys. I’m going to be serious right now.” Naruto grimaced, the dark whisker lines on his cheeks standing out starkly on his even paler skin as Sasuke and I got into position. “You’re going to have to do everything as soon as I say it.”  
  
My heart fell an inch or so, closer to my stomach. “Why?”  
  
“What did you do, dumbass?” Sasuke swore.  
  
“Fuck you, asshole!” Naruto snapped before turning back to me, Kakashi having backed up minutes ago. Smart. “Each piece you disarm starts a three-to-five-second timer. It’s random.” He licked his lips. “If you don’t disarm the next piece fast enough, in the right order, it all goes off.”  
  
I gave him a blank, disbelieving stare.  
  
He continued to look nervous and shifted on his feet.  
  
“What the hell, Naruto?”  
  
“You told me to bring my A-game!”  
  
I took a deep breath. He was right. He wasn’t the only one to blame here. Damn my curiosity. “I did.”  
  
“Damn it, Sakura,” Sasuke muttered.  
  
I ignored that. We had a job to do and pointing fingers would get us nowhere. “Where do we start, Naruto?”  
  
“Uh… Do you see the widget? Right next to the doo-hickey?”  
  
“The what and the _what_?”  
  
“You know! The thing with the kunai!”  
  
Sasuke closed his eyes, as resigned as I was quickly becoming. “Nice knowing you, Haruno.”  
  
I had run out of things to be happy about today.  
  
Just as I’d expected.  
  
==========  
  
Prodigy.  
  
How I _loathed_ that word. Prodigy. I loathed everything about it. What it meant. The connotations. The expectations. The _glorification_ of your empty future as a child soldier (With a title such as _prodigy_ , that was the only future you had) and future mess as an adult.  
  
I hated that it was so cheap. You couldn’t walk down the street without stumbling on a loudly declared ‘prodigy’. There was a new one every minute. Hyuuga, Uchiha, Kurama. From families you’ve never even heard of and families you have. We weren’t running out of them any time soon.  
  
All it was, was an excuse to throw more of these young ninja into the meat grinder. Couched in terms of praise, of honor… It was a trap. It was a lie that had led to my sensei’s well-known participation in the third ninja war at the age of five years old. It was a fiction that had turned Sasuke’s brother into a barely human, pacifistic, and almost definitely entirely insane, guilt-ridden murder machine.  
  
It was a constant weight on my mood.  
  
I wanted no part of it. I’d worked hard for what I had. I was _still_ working hard for it.  
  
 _“A new bloodline, you think?”_  
  
 _“She’ll outrank her parents before she hits her next birthday.”_  
  
 _“The Haruno child will be doing S-ranks before she’s twenty at this rate.”_  
  
 _“This chakra control is on another level…”_  
  
 _“She’s a real genius.”_  
  
…The idea that might have been the case, that nearly all my ‘talent’ was the result of hard work instead of inborn abilities wasn’t one my peers could accept though. Because of course not. You were _born_ special or you weren’t. And that was that. That was how ninja worked. My blatant refusal of the title couldn’t be allowed to happen, if only for their own egos. All for some false assumption that they mattered, out in the real world.  
  
Just over a decade of training my relatively minuscule chakra pool to respond at a thought had led to it responding at a thought. Shocking. And nearly inconceivable.  
  
If not for what was coming, I’d have stayed a civilian. Mom and Dad would have been cool with it. Maybe opened up a bakery. Done a reasonable approximation of a slice of life manga, but for real. I’d even have coffee. Hot chocolate. And a little veranda so that people could eat and drink outside. Something _nice_ that wasn’t selling my life for money I’d never get to see.  
  
…Life wasn’t all bad though. Don’t get me wrong. I had parents that loved me, even if they were away a lot. A home to come back to at the end of the day. Hot food. I had good friends, some of them better than others. For obvious reasons.  
  
 _“You’re very pretty, you know? Those guys are just jerks!”_  
  
 _“Uh...thank you? But that wasn’t why I was-”_  
  
 _“You should come play with us!”_  
  
 _“What. Who? Oh, no, that’s oka- How are you so strong!?”_  
  
 _“Keep up! I’ve got just the right thing for that hair of yours!”_  
  
Or just around the longest...which might have been the same thing, really. Ino had been Ino even then. As only Ino could be.  
  
Never change.  
  
“And I’d been starting to think you’d forgotten how to smile.” Ino took a peek at me from below the steaming hand towel she’d placed over her eyes. “Would you look at that?”  
  
It was probably terrible to look at.  
  
“I’d smile more if it hurt less,” I groaned, my pleasant and highly distracting from the pain reminiscing cut off at the sound of Ino’s real voice… Maybe she could change after all. Just a little? Just a thought as I ran a green-lit hand over my cheek again; I swore I could feel sandal treads. “Kakashi-sensei is a real hardass.”  
  
 _A roundhouse kick that I hadn’t even seen coming had me skipping across the dirt like a stone across the surface of a pond, head spinning and ears ringing._  
  
“He sure sounds like it. And looks like it too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that messed up.” Ino shrugged her way up against the stone platform we were both leaning against, higher out of the water. “But at least you passed, right?”  
  
 _Naruto pinwheeled past me with a dumb expression of surprise on his face, rear-end thankfully unpoked as he vanished into the bushes._  
  
“We passed alright,” I grumbled. “He was so impressed with our teamwork, and how we didn’t end up accidentally killing ourselves that he let his normal test go.”  
  
 _Sasuke found himself tossed into a tree by a punch, stunned, limbs askew and an empty fallen bird’s nest in his hair._  
  
“So then he decided to see what you could do the day after instead. The hard way.” Ino nodded to me, her towel falling back across her face. Then sliding down it, into the water where it began to float away. “You told me.”  
  
 _An orange book laid in the dirt. Pages splayed out awkwardly, the spine slightly cracked._  
  
 _A terrible, awkward silence._  
  
 _Kakashi blinked a single eye in surprise, an elbow cradled in the palm of his hand while he rotated the wrist of the other. “That wasn’t in your file.”_  
  
“It started like that,” was my hollow reply. “It sure started like that.”  
  
 _“My second impression of you all is… I don’t like you.”_  
  
Kakashi hadn’t appreciated the feeling of his funny bone being hit about twenty times in a row with a rock. A sharp rock. The feeling and its aftertaste.  
  
He had not...and he really should have dodged instead of blocked.  
  
That hadn’t been my fault.  
  
And, after the last couple of days, I wasn’t sorry.  
  
“Hm. That’s ominous. And you didn’t tell me about that.” Ino slid closer to me. Not quite touching, but closer. Her milky breasts bobbed gently in the water, soothing my spirit with their presence… I could sleep on them all day, I swear. And I had. “Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
I didn’t want to think about this anymore. Or the last day in general.  
  
It could have been better.  
  
Time to pretend like it never happened.  
  
“...Not really.” I’d never been schooled so badly in my life. Sure, Kakashi was a jounin but I had my pride, even if it was a small thing that I’d throw away in a second if it meant staying alive... And besides. Ino would probably just laugh at me again. “How was your time with your sensei?”  
  
Better than mine, clearly. She didn’t have a limp.  
  
“Nothing like yours,” Ino told me what I’d already known. “Asuma-sensei is a lot more laid back. Maybe _too_ laid back.” Ino gave me a light pat on the back, making me flinch a little and move away from the wall. Then she slid into the gap, hands flipping smoothly through the hand signs for the mystic palm as she did so; she was an absolute angel. “He had us demonstrate the jutsu we knew, gave us a pat on the back, and challenged Shika to a game of shogi.”  
  
I couldn’t help the wince and the moan when Ino’s hands started roaming over my back. And at what she’d just said. This wince was multi-tiered. “You’re kidding me.”  
  
“Shikamaru kicked his butt. It wasn’t even a contest. Also, your back looks like it took on night camouflage.”  
  
“Purple, blue, and that weird sort of gray?” My back arched, and not in a good way as she pressed down between my shoulder blades… Lesson learned. Don’t touch the book. “Gentle!”  
  
“There’s some yellow too. To break up your shape. How thoughtful,” Ino proceeded to not agree to be gentle. But, seeing as the general level of pain was starting to drop, I found it within myself to forgive her. “This jutsu is actually pretty useful, isn’t it?”  
  
I blew out a breath. “I’d think so, yes. That’s why I taught it to you.”  
  
Why this wasn’t part of the basic curriculum for people with decent control, I had no idea. Sure, it wasn’t going to fix organ damage or a broken bone but, sometimes, all you needed was to keep the blood in.  
  
Or fix a sudden case of third-degree burns.  
  
I heard that the last one happened a lot.  
  
“Right. Someone has to patch you up when you do something dumb. Like, antagonize a jounin.” Ouch, Ino. “It would be a shame if skin as nice as yours got all scarred up and gross just because you were acting too much like yourself.”  
  
I huffed out a laugh, a puff of steam off the water wafting into my face. “I don’t think that’s something I’d be all that concerned about when I’m bleeding to death, Ino. But, sure. That’s why I taught you that.”  
  
“Kunoichi of the year,” Ino sang into my ear, the hard points of her nipples grazing me as she leaned in to clear up some of the scratches on my collarbone. “Always two steps ahead of everyone else.”  
  
She’d be throwing that ‘accomplishment’ at me until the day I died, wouldn’t she? Ah, well. There were worse things to be teased about. Like tactical considerations. “Always looking underneath the underneath.”  
  
“I see you’ve been talking to a fortune teller. That’s cryptic. I do like the sound of it though. That’s good advice if you look at it the right way.” Ino chuckled, her fingers suddenly tickling my lower stomach and making me sit upright. “I wouldn’t mind if you looked at my underneath while I looked at yours.”  
  
Sometimes, letting Ino set the pace of whatever we were was...difficult. And confusing.  
  
Ino could afford to change. Just a little.  
  
“No, that’s something my sensei said about ninja life while working us over. I wasn’t trying to seduce-” I coughed, knees slowly coming together so as not to make any noticeable splashes while Ino suggestively tangled her digits up in the dark pink curls of my pubic hair and gave them a tug. “Not in public, Ino. That’s rude.”  
  
And illegal. Pretty sure it was that too. Public indecency tended to be that.  
  
“Of course not in public. What do you take me for? I’m a _lady._ ” Ino let go, sounding positively scandalized at the idea. “That was just something to remember me by.”  
  
Of course it had been.  
  
“Because my memory is just that bad.” I leaned back and into her, pretending that no one could see us. Which was a lie, even if there was no one else in the springs with us. As Kakashi had reminded me, I was good, but there were better. Not seeing anyone didn’t mean anything. “Also, Ino?”  
  
Ino answered me with a questioning hum as she got back to making my back a single color once more.  
  
“Do you think I’d be a good baker?”  
  
I had to ask. That thought of mine hadn’t been entirely serious. But neither had it been entirely not.  
  
Ino’s family ran a flower shop. Why couldn’t I have something off to the side as well?  
  
“What? ...Sakura.” Ino took her time with that one, stretching out my name and pounding my mood into the ground at the same time. “You can barely toast bread. And you want to be a baker? Where did that come from?”  
  
“I can toast bread,” I said back, miffed. She was exaggerating. “It’s just that I like the crunch. And I thought it sounded nice. Relaxing.”  
  
“Of charcoal? And, I guess?” Her hair tickled the back of my neck as she shook her head. “But that isn’t really _you_ , you know?”  
  
Dark brown wasn’t black. But I didn’t expect her to understand the difference.  
  
“You could have just said ‘no, Sakura, I don’t think you’d be a good baker’.”  
  
“No, Sakura, I don’t think you’d be a good baker.”  
  
I’d walked into that one. Really. I should have known better than to say anything. “Well played.”  
  
“You make it easy, forehead...and we should go. We’ve got missions to do tomorrow! We’ll be real ninja, doing things that real ninja do!” She gave me a cheerful pat on the shoulder and stood up. “And besides, I’m starting to prune and that’s gross.”  
  
“Real ninja. Uh-huh. We are that now, aren’t we?”I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d be weeding someone’s garden tomorrow. Or painting a fence. Or getting groceries. I just didn’t… That or I was feeling vindictive again. More the latter. Some the former. “That’ll be something alright.”  
  
The blonde sighed. “You’re not even trying to be convincing. Do you even care?” Ino poked me playfully in the chest as I crawled out of the water, goosebumps popping up all over my skin. “Would it kill you to be excited about something for once?”  
  
“I wouldn’t want to risk it.”  
  
Ino wasn’t the only one that had fences to paint tomorrow.  
  
“Oh. Wait. I forgot to ask. And what was up with the bells?”  
  
My shoulders fell. “Nothing.”  
  
“Nothing?”  
  
 _“What do we get for getting all the bells while disarming Naruto’s trap and saving the dog, anyway?”_  
  
 _“What do you get for getting the bells?”_  
  
 _“Yes.”_  
  
 _“Oh, just something I like to call…”_  
  
“Nothing.” That was my empty reply. I hadn’t expected a party or anything, but I hadn’t been through something so nervewracking since the first time I’d had sex with Ino. “He was just screwing with us.”  
  
“Wow.”  
  
“Yeah, wow.”  
  
Kakashi-sensei was sort of a dick. But that was okay.  
  
 _“... Where’s Yanyan-Kun?”_  
  
 _“Dunno.”_  
  
I’d got mine.  
  
==========  
  
I was ambushed as soon as I walked through the door of my own home, relaxed from the warmth of the springs and the cessation of pain; Mercilessly assaulted in my moment of weakness I was reminded that nowhere was safe, no matter where or when I was. Arms like iron held me tight and I was defenseless to do anything about it.  
  
It wasn’t as if I could lash out, after all. Or that I wanted to.  
  
Torturing family was more of an Uchiha thing.  
  
“Mebuki! Our little girl! Our little girl is-” My dad fake-cried over my head after having picked me up off the ground and forcibly buried my face in his chest before he started twisting his torso, making my legs flop like a rag doll’s. He smelled like dirt. And sweat. My childhood, in other words. “She’s a genin now, just like her parents! We need to celebrate!”  
  
“Hi, Dad,” I muttered as I tried to return my dad’s hug with debatable success, the tips of my feet repeatedly brushing over the floor the whole time. “Hi, Mom.”  
  
“Hello, Sakura,” my mom said back, amusement clear in her voice while she did nothing to help. “Do you want barbecue tomorrow, or sushi?”  
  
I thought about it. Barbecue sounded nice, but I’d had some just two days ago. And, again. Habits were the enemy. “Sushi, please. Tuna sounds good.”  
  
“Then we’ll have tuna. And we picked something up for you while you were out.” I felt a pull on my hair, my mother’s deft fingers unweaving then reweaving my hair to add something to it. “A pin to go with that bow of yours.”  
  
“A sakura blossom pin, for our little Sakura.”  
  
“Dad. Come on.” I squirmed, my face suddenly uncomfortably warm. Dad could be - mushy - sometimes. “Is it - pointy?”  
  
That might have sounded ungrateful, but it was an important consideration.  
  
“We wouldn’t have got it for you if it wasn’t. And it's a father’s job to embarrass their daughters. You’ll just have to cope,” Dad informed me kindly. Not for the first time. Not for the last. “Right, Mebuki?”  
  
…This was great.  
  
Mom gave my hair a tug to retighten my braid, the feeling of cold metal at the back of my head an oddly reassuring one. “As long as it isn’t in front of her friends, Kizashi.”  
  
Dad shook me some more. I continued to play the part of a ragdoll. “But that’s when fathers truly shine!”  
  
I reached a hand back behind my head to feel out the pin… The petals. The senbon sharp point... It felt useful. Beautiful. “I wouldn’t know what to do without that mortified feeling in my life.”  
  
Even if my life really didn’t matter in the greater scheme of things...at least it mattered to someone.  
  
Three someones.  
  
Naruto might have had a point.  
  
Precious people were pretty nice to have.


End file.
